The Bad in Each Other

Picking Up The Pieces

ANINA:
I wasted no time texting Ebony and telling her that Brianna was a visitor at the same jail my dad resided in. There was no point pretending that my father wasn't in prison anymore, everyone knew it and if they didn't they were destined to find out soon.
My phone buzzed and I looked at the screen.

Message received from: Ebony
Message: Yeah hardly a surprise there, of course that bitch had secrets. Now you have to ask yourself: how did she know about your mum?

Eb was right. How did Brianna know my mother was an alcohol addict? And how would I ever know?

Message to: Ebony
Message: Am working on it, will let you know if I come across anything.

But I honestly wasn't sure if I ever would.
Still disappointed in my mum, I wanted to check her room to see if she was at least a little better. Not her health, she wasn't home at the moment (surprise surprise), but by checking her room I meant seeing if it was in any better condition since last time I looked.
I wearily opened the door a fraction and looked around. The smell of cigarettes was no longer as evident as it once was, but her room still looked messy. I skimmed my eyes across the floor and was intrigued when I saw a business card with the name: Hank Witherstone written at the top. I edged closer to the card and soon saw, that underneath his name, there was a few words saying: Local Bar, Diner and TAB.
My mouth opened in shock as I processed what I was seeing. Hank Witherstone? Brianna's dad? It had to be. It connected. Everything linked together. Brianna's dad would've spoken to my mum one night at his bar when's she was overly drunk, and knowing how my mum gets when she's heavily intoxicated, she would've gone on and on about my life and how she was my mum. That very night or the next day, Hank would've mentioned to his whore of a daughter and told her he talked to my mum and asked Brianna if she knew me. Brianna would've pounced on the information- as we had just been in a fight- and concluded from the way her father had talked about my mother that she was a obviously a drunkard. Hank wouldn't've known what he was actually doing when he told Brianna about me. He was oblivious to her bitchiness and clearly had no clue that he just ruined the social life of a young teenage girl. Me.
Overwhelmed with information, I leapt over to my phone and dialled Ebony's number.
"Hey Neens' what's up?" New nickname I presume.
"I know why Brianna found out about my mum."
"How?! Are you sure you do? She's a sneaky conniving slut you know," she warned me. Yeah, I already knew that.
After about 10 solid minutes of explaining, Ebony had the basic knowledge of why Brianna had the first look on my private life.
"I gotta go, we'll talk more about this later okay?," Ebony said, farewelling me.
"Okay yeah thanks, bye," I replied.
Then there was the sound of the disconnected-call beep, and everything went quiet.

The next morning I woke up and mentally prepared myself for what I was thinking about doing that day. I knew I had nothing to lose when I hopefully did what I was planning to do, because I knew I had a stable friendship with Ebony, my secrets were all out so no one could hold the thought of people finding out about myself against me, and I didn't have Tristan's liking to me to worry about.
Gosh, I do miss Tristan though.

I made my way to school and took a deep breath as I entered the gates. I wasn't surprised at how many students I passed gave me a strange look, but I told myself not to worry about it. I met up with Ebony just before we were supposed to begin to lineup for home group, and told her what I was going to do.
Ebony wasn't slow to confirm that my plan didn't have any flaws, and she told me to wait till more kids arrived to school before making my move.
I did just that, and when a sufficient amount of teenagers were waiting for the school day to begin, I led Ebony over to Brianna.
Ebony stayed behind and waited as she promised she would while I made my last 10meter walk over to Brianna. I took a deep breath as my heart pumped abnormally fast and breathed out. With my head held high, and all the possibilities and expectations running through my head, I held out my hand, extended my fingers and bravely poked Brianna's shoulder twice, before she turned around and looked at me in both surprise and fury.
"Hi Brianna," I said smiling. She didn't reply. Instead she looked at me with disgust and confusion.
"It's so lovely to see how much you enjoy stalking my personal life," I said sarcastically, still smiling. Brianna looked dumbfounded.
"It's a shame I know how you found out all my shit," I said, my fake over-cheerful smile turning into a straight, un-amused line.
On queue, Ebony strolled over casually, whispering to everyone she could on the way over to me and Brianna.
"There's a fight! Brianna Witherstone is about to her her ass kicked!" Soon she gave up trying to tell everyone separately and decided to scream it out to anyone in the school yard.
As we suspected, a vast number of students came over to me and Brianna and circled us. Shit's getting real, I thought.
"Care to explain how you knew about my imprisoned father?" I said clearly, so people around us could hear. I needed them to hear the truth.
As I predicted, Brianna was completely silent. I heard a few kids mutter to each other things like: "Oh my god, Brianna is actually losing!" And "why isn't she replying? What did she do?" And also sentences like "shit I want to hear this." In a matter of seconds, we were crowded by an awful amount of students, all ready for some action. They created a ring around us, which I thought was a good thing so Brianna couldn't get out as easily without me having the last word. As well as that, I could tell it made her feel more intimidated.
"I know why," I said courageously. I had a sudden burst of confidence and I immediately felt like I had the upper hand.
She looked around nervously, confirming my thoughts that her mum was at the jail too. It wasn't her dad in the prison, obviously, as he owned the bar, but if it was someone other than her mother she would've needed a guardian or parent to go with her to visit them- and there was only just one person with the last name Witherstone on the visitors book.
"You think your so fucking amazing going around and sharing my personal crap with everyone, don't you?" I gave up trying to hide my cursive language and let it flow free.
For someone who broadcasts themselves as the most coolest kid in school, Brianna was really shit when it came to pressured fights.
I had her pinned down literarily, and she knew she was losing her perfect reputation. I don't feel bad about it though, she ruined my reputation so it's payback time, bitch.
"Look at you!" She said suddenly. "You're nothing. You have no friends, no boyfriend, your parents are muck-ups, and no matter where you go, you'll always be an outsider. People like you don't deserve to be on this planet." She stated with a cold heart. Ouch. I'll admit that kinda hurt.
The audience was watching and waiting, and after what Brianna just said to me, I had no trouble exposing her.
"You know how she knew about my dad being in jail?" I said turning to face the students. They looked interested, I'll give them that. "Brianna knows about my dad's past as she, too, has someone whom she loves very much in prison also. Her own mother." I said, glancing around at everyone's responses. There were quite a few gasps, as no one could believe that the Brianna Witherstone, top shit of Ambrosine High could be related to a criminal. "It's true," I stated, "her name was put into the visitors log book." If these people thought I had issues, being a quiet girl from out of town, then I could only wonder what they were now thinking of Brianna, the most popular girl in the school. "So Brianna," I began, "do you still mean what you said about there being a problem with having a parent in prison? You know, considering we both have that." I smirked, and before I could begin to explain about my mum and her alcohol part of the story, Brianna had begun to violently push herself past kids that had circled us, and ran to anyone who would take her side of the quarrel. But there was no one.
You get what you deserve, bitch. I thought.
The students who saw the fight, which looked to be about everyone, couldn't hide their happiness that the witch was defeated. Ebony rushed over and hugged me, and I smiled, a happy, grateful, proud smile.

I headed to class feeling pretty good about myself, and took a seat. The day was quickly over, and I was glad to go home. To my much surprise, as I made my way along to my mum's car, a whole group of kids congratulated me, and it was obvious that they were sick of Brianna and her bitchiness. I had put an end to it all.